What should you ask before hiring a Toronto contractor

Safety first

There are three main factors that you must keep in mind when hiring a painting company for your home painting projects.

1. WSIB (Clearance Certificate from Workers Safety Insurance Board)
2. Liability insurance (At least $1 million liability insurance)
3. Criminal background check

WSIB

Statistically 2 out of 3 trade people don’t have WSIB clearance certificate.  Make sure to ask if the home painting contractor has Workers Safety Insurance Board certificate? If they don’t and they eventually get injured during the house painting process, then you and your house insurance will be liable for this injured worker’s current and future wages as well as medical expenses. So it’s a must you ask this vital question and ensure that they have clearance certificate from WSIB before hiring them for the house painting project.

Liability insurance

In case of an accident occurrence during the course of painting the house (i.e. paint spill, flood, fire or damaged property in any way), you will be liable for your own property damage, unless you want to go through the hassle of legal measures which may be time consuming. This is normal to have most especially if the job size is less than the value of what is been damaged. More over any construction trade must have liability insurance since most of unexpected damages to the property are very costly. Make sure you read their policy for special places and customers in case the job is too small and the risk is high.

Criminal background check

Would you let strangers into your house, without at least checking them?, remember there is possibility they could be criminals and likely to have criminal records, endevour to check your house painters’ criminal records if they have any, this can be done online through Toronto Police Clearance Checks.
OR better still, ask for their Clearance Badge that all employees suppose to have, ask if they have been checked. 1 out of 10 trade people have a criminal record.

Professionalism after

In addition here are three factors that make a huge difference in hiring a painting company.

1. Quality of painting material
2. Refrences
3. Accurate duration of the project

Quality Paint Matters

Make sure to ask what material is the painter is going to use. Painting material quality is very important – It has to be from a reputable paint manufacturer and don’t let them use any substandard paint, remember you will be the one to live in the apartment after the home painting is done, so its crucial you ask the house painters the paint brand and quality that they will use, so as to ensure they will never use a substandard paint for your house painting project.

Low VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) paints are also recommended or considered good for the environment and the health of the household. Especially for interior painting. Knowing about these and other new products demonstrates your painters knowledge of the field and if you give them the job they will surely delivered a quality house painting service to you.

Refrences

Ensure you ask below listed questions for their references, Ask them about:
Clients from within the past 1 year or more recent.
Past clients from 3-5 years ago.
Reputable home improvement references such as HOMESTAR reviews
Reputable references such as well-known commercial corporations.

Accurate duration of the projects

Make sure your painting company putting the duration of the painting project in writing since lots of home painters and home improvement contractors tend to start a job and leave to start another one for keeping the customer fellow in most cases when they don’t have enough employees to accommodate for any job size. putting such information in writing ensures that you get your project done in a timely manner as well as having your trade working in consecutive days.

Last but not least

Warranty

Ask your home painter to give you documented warranty (if they are offering it since most painting companies do). If you are signing a contract ask them to include the warranty duration as a part of the agreement. When it comes to honoring the warranty most home painters tend to blame the damages to your usage of the space and they simply call it wear and tear. Normal wear and tear is always clear and a defective painting job process should be covered under such warranty promises.

There are definitely more factors that help you make a better decision but these are mostly the ones that make a huge difference in choosing the right home painter.

If you like what you read please feel free to challenge us on all of them so we could have the honor of painting your home or office with a safe and professional team of painters. Looking forward to working with you.